The GXtips move keeps getting along. It consists of clear and practical advice that simplifies the tasks at the time of working. In this case, Sabrina Juarez, a member of Artech’s Support Team, explains what are the necessary steps to install a GXWS application in Linux.

We’ll explain the main steps that have to be followed to install a Java GUI application in a Linux client using GeneXus Web Start (GXWS).

 

The fist step is to check if there is a browser installed in the Linux client. In this example, we installed Firefox 2.0.0.4 for Linux.

 

If you download the firefox file-2.0.0.4.tar.gz, you’ll have to install it using the following command: tar –xvzf firefox-2.0.0.4.tar.gz. As a result we’ll have a “firefox” executable within the folder with the same name.

 

In this example, installing Firefox was not enough to run the GXWS application, because Firefox does not have the Java plugins installed by default. For this, visit the following URL and download the Java plug-in. In any case, if you try to execute the java application directly from the browser (without having the plug-in installed), for example: http://server:port/url_base/hwmain.html, the GXWS installer will not work and the user will be informed of this situation while a link to the plugins available for download will appear.

After installing the Java plug-in, you have to make sure that:

 

1. Java must be enabled in the browser. In Firefox 2.0.0.4 for Linux this is setup under Edit > Preferences > Content.

2. The Java plug-in has to be on the list of plugins recognized by Firefox. For more information about it, see: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/java.html#Linux

In our example, under the firefox plug-in directory, we install the Java plug-in (it is then located under: /firefox/plugins/jre1.6.0_02)

It is then necessary to go to the “plugins” folder under the firefox setup and create a dynamic link from th  JRE plug-in to this directory. We execute the following command so that we can add the Java plug-in to the Firefox plugins:

From now on, GXWS launcher should get downloaded and operate correctly, just as the GUI application we are installing.

To read the full article in the Community Wiki about how to install the GXWS application in Linux, click here.